LOGINMallory Trent has two goals in life: to be an obedient daughter and become a star violinist. Things seem to work in her favor when she gets to be one of the lucky instrumentalists selected for a spot in the Starlight Academy, an exclusive art school in search of raw and distinctive talents. Being the inexperienced daddy's girl she is, she enters the competition expecting this would be just another breeze. But after a couple of hits in her rear, she decides she has to do something she's never done before. Fight herself to the top. That also implies her trampling every form of opposition and getting out of her little naïve shell. She needs to shed her old skin and get herself a tougher one, a harder heart. And sure, she gets one. Yet, at the expense of rebelling against her ill father and getting herself an intellectual boyfriend who's arguments against God puts her at seeming enmity with her religious roots. But either way, it appears to be a win-win situation when she returns to the competition, a newer her, the best her yet as it were. In the meanwhile, at the competition, hearts-and strings-get broken, the talented get blacklisted, and friends become enemies. Mallory seems at all odds when she has to fight off the feeling that something is terribly wrong with her world, that everything isn't quite what it seems at Starlight Academy.
View MoreHe who sacrifices his conscience to ambition burns a picture to obtain the ashes
Mallory had never been the type to attract people, In fact, with how judgmental Cole had taught her to be, she steered them away.Stay away from worldly people'he'd said, They will do no good but choke out the light in you, Mal. Let them know point-blank what your values are, else they'd influence you with theirs. Don't hesitate to tell them you don't want their friendship. And mean it!
When he saw her coming up close from atop the airy balcony, he knew that alas, things were working in his favor. He'd known she would come, was rest-assured of it. Those as ambitious and drunk in the prospect of stardom as she was, would find great difficulty in rejecting his offer because then they'd be rejecting a part of themselves, that bite-size yet predominant part that made up their identity—The raging hunger for fame, and the insuppressible wanting to turn their dreams into a reality. Those two combined, birthed something indomitable, made them absolutely invincible to accomplishing their aspirations. To them, anything that wasn't in accordance with that was not worth the chase. His years of examining throngs of them had deepened his understand
ERIC ROSSI'S LOG CABIN WAS NESTLEDin the thickest parts of Brosway wood, hinged on a temper, rocky hill, and flanked by tall, prying trees. It was a structure Eric's family had owned for years gone, established in favor of the introversion that ran through the Rossi's blood, the nearly inhuman desire to separate themselves from the rest of humanity. Weird as it was, they'd created the cabin to only accommodate one person per period. And now, for the first time in decades, it would accommodate two.